If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society as most appear to do Im sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. Henry David Thoreau Category: Labor

It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else owning capital somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers and thus induce them to work by their consent. Having proceeded so far it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as here assumed .... Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights which are as worthy of protection as any other rights Abraham Lincoln Category: Labor

Labour in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital but capital solicits the aid of labor. Daniel Webster Category: Labor

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat get that I wear owe no man hate envy no mans happiness glad of other mens good content with my harm. William Shakespeare Category: Labor

The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit. Samuel Gompers Category: Labor

Excellence in any department can only be attained by the labor of a lifetime. It is not purchased at a lesser price. Samuel Johnson Category: Labor

Success in our calling is the result of a person's love of and belief in the work he has undertaken. Earnest and conscientious labor often accomplishes more in the end than brilliant genius. Unknown Category: Labor

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. Martin Luther King Jr. Category: Labor

I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this limitation observed that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action. An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge August 31 1837. Ralph Waldo Emerson Category: Labor

APPETITE n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question. Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Category: Labor

Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you have working there and what they carry around in their heads and their ability to work together. Robert B. Reich Category: Labor

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes at the ground The emptiness of ages in his face And on his back the burden of the world. Charles Edwin Markham Category: Labor

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain and since labor is pain in itself it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions neither religion nor morality can stop it. When then does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident then that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder. Claude Frederic Bastiat Category: Labor

He that hath a trade hath an estate; he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor. Benjamin Franklin Category: Labor